


Three Septembers

by opalmatrix



Category: Flame-Colored Taffeta - Rosemary Sutcliff
Genre: 18th Century, Gen, Healers, Orphans, Roma, Starting Over
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-15 05:54:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14784756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/opalmatrix/pseuds/opalmatrix
Summary: An ill and unwanted girl is left with a wise woman in a small Sussex village.





	Three Septembers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [isiscolo (Isis)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isis/gifts).



> Because I'm not the only one who wondered about Genty Small. Beta by [**riventhorn**](https://archiveofourown.org/users/riventhorn/pseuds/riventhorn) and [**whymzycal**](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whymzycal/pseuds/whymzycal)

The early autumn twilight was coming over the land, from Bognor Regis to Chichester. The birds of passage, from the tiny goldcrest to the pied brant goose, were settling to their day's rest. Smoky clouds of old man's beard were becoming visible in the trees, and the bright leaves were shivering on the beech and oak, sometimes spiraling down to the ground in the face of the wind.

Genty Small was coming back from a shepherd's cottage on the heath, where she'd treated the man's rheumatic knees and advised his wife on her youngest, who was poorly with a cough. Her basket was heavy with the addition of some sheep's-milk cheese, and her pocket with several pennies. As she caught site of her own cottage within its sweetbrier hedge, she felt first the welcome of returning to her own place after a day's labor well done, and then again, a vision of the time when she had seen naught but a strange _gadje_ place.

She walked slowly to the open gap that let the path run to her front door, where Griselda waited. But she didn't walk within or greet her cat; Genty remembered another September.

* * *

It was harvest time, and Lasho Mack's people had almost finished with their work at the farms about Somerley Green. The grain was in, and they were helping with the threshing at the Red House Farm. The womenfolk were beating the stalks with the threshing flails, the older children were raking and fanning, and the men were lazing by the wagons, talking over their horses and those of the village. Jeta and her friend Vai were hunting for the farm cat, who had had enough of being snatched off her feet and carried about like a rag poppet. 

The wind went cold, all at once, and all the grown folk were rushing about getting the grain and straw under cover. Jeta and Vai ran and scurried as well, but the rain was already pelting down before they'd quite finished. The Mack and their fellows huddled in the wagon beds as the horses plodded through the mud to their camp, where the oldest and youngest of the band had stayed back. Soon Jeta was sitting with Vai and her brothers in their family's tent, sharing the bread that the farmwife had given Lasho and the stew of wild onion, barley, and duck that the old women had cooked before the rain set in.

That should have been the end of it. Jeta had been soaked to the skin more times than she could count; it was a fact of life on the open road. But something went wrong, and by morning, Jeta was shivering and aching.

She was left back in the camp when the working folk left again to finish up at the farm. Old Malina, who was herb-wise, dosed her and tended her while the other grandmothers tended the babies, washed the clothes and hung them to dry on the bushes, and made the supper ready. But Jeta was no better that evening, nor the next morning, nor the day after.

Her memories of those days were a long confusion of pain and thirst. But the argument between Lasho and Malina was as sharp as a steel knife blade.

"We must leave," said Lasho. "The work hereabouts is done. We have apples awaiting us farther west, and the late hay."

"I say to you this child will die if she cannot rest," snapped Malina. "A moving and open wagon is no place to fight off the lung sickness!"

Lasho shrugged, his face hard. "If it must be so, then it will be so. She has no mother, and her father was not of our own kind. Those blue eyes belong to no man of our folk. We have four other girls of like age among us, and two of those of your own blood"

"And not a one of the girls can tell one herb from another as well as Jeta!"

They were glaring at each other, both angry that the other would disagree this openly. Lesho was their leader, but old Malina was their soul and their healer.

"Grandmother," said a soft voice.

"What is it, Saiera?" said Malina, her eyes still on Lasho.

Vai's mother was quiet and gentle. She looked at her feet as she spoke. "There is an herb-wife in this village. Oh, not a wise one like you, my grandmother. But perhaps she would keep this child for us."

"We have no coins to spare to pay this woman," growled Lasho.

"As you say, Lasho," agreed Vai's mother. "But as my grandmother says, Jeta is clever with herbs. Perhaps she could use a servant."

"No!" Jeta wailed. How could they speak of leaving her behind among the _gadje_?

"Hush you, little bird," crooned Malina, although her eyes still glared at Lasho. He turned away, and Jeta cried herself into a stupor in Malina's arms.

Some time passed, perhaps a day, perhaps more. Jeta came awake to find that Vai's mother was carrying her along a path through a scrub wood. Old Malina was muttering and cursing behind her. A light rain was falling, and Jeta shivered in the chill. They came out from the trees into a clearing. There stood a small house of timber and daub, with a low hedge of sweetbrier about it and woodsmoke rising from the chimney. "The witch-woman is at her hearth," muttered Vai's mother.

"Well, don't just stand there!" snapped Malina. "How long must I flog my heart? And your pea-brained brother-in-law will leave us behind if we are not back soon!"

Vai's mother carried her as far as the gap in the hedge, where a smaller path ran up to the open door. A large grey cat with a white chest stood there. She hissed at the visitors and fled within. A few breaths later, a tall, gaunt woman came to the door. Her hair was wrapped in a white cloth, but a few grey wisps blew loose about her long face. Her eyes were also grey, paler than her bodice and kirtle. She was wiping her hands on an apron of white sacking.

"Say something," hissed Malina.

Vai's mother spoke in the language of the _gadje_. Jeta didn't understand a word beyond "lady," which she and the other children had been taught to use for farm women and villagers. She only knew that this must be the herb-wife that Lasho and Malina had spoken about. She began to struggle in Vai's mother's arms, and once again, everything went gray.

When Jeta woke up again, she was warm, and the air about her smelled of woodsmoke, herbs, and food. There was no wind, no smell of trees, rain, or earth. She opened her eyes.

She was within doors, which had happened only twice in her life that she could recall. She was on a pallet of some sort near a hearth cheery with a good fire. Overhead were great wooden beams from which bundles of dried herbs, baskets, and strings of onions hung. Long shelves of wood affixed to the walls held more of the same, as well as jars and flasks. A ladder led upward to a hole in the planks overhead. The grey cat was curled up at the other side of the hearth, but he woke and stretched as she shifted to look around.

"Cat," she said, in her own language. He blinked yellow eyes at her and yowled softly. She heard footsteps overhead, and the grey woman climbed down the ladder. Jeta's heart began to pound in her chest. 

The grey one came over to the hearth and knelt down by Jeta, then reached out one hand to feel Jeta's head and wrist. Jeta flinched away from her, but the woman's face grew more peaceful and she nodded. She gestured toward herself. "Marge," she said.

Jeta blinked. Was the woman saying "woman," or was that a name, or something else entirely? 

"Gib," said the woman, pointing to the cat. He stepped toward her and stretched up his face to rub his cheek on her hand. He was so clearly at his ease that Jeta's fear ebbed a bit.

The grey woman shifted over to where the cat had been sleeping and picked up a rag. She reached into the hearth and took a small iron pot from a hook there. She set the pot on the hearthstone, then arose and fetched a ladle, a small bowl, and a wooden spoon. She spooned something from the pot into the bowl and brought it to Jeta.

There was a very good smell of food coming from the bowl.

Jeta did not want to stay with the grey woman. She did not want to do anything that this stranger wanted her to do. But she was hungry for the first time in longer than she could remember.

She tried to sit up. It was hard, terribly hard. The grey woman put down the bowl and came to help her. The arm behind Jeta's back was a hard and strong as a man's. At last she was sitting, slumped and wavering. In the end, the grey woman had to hold Jeta while she drank the broth and ate the finely chopped chicken meat and the soft vegetables.

Afterward, Jeta was as tired as a baby with a full belly, and she laid down again. This time, the cat came and slept beside her.

When Jeta could walk again, she thought of running off, but her memories said that Lasho, Vai, and everyone she knew in the world had left her. There was nothing for it but to learn to live this new life, a life spent half closed into walls.

The grey woman was named Margery Small, but everyone called her Marge—except those few who called her "Old Witch." Jeta learned that Marge's skills were regarded askance by many, even as they saved lives. It had something to do with church, but Marge did sometimes go to church. "I doubt much that God cares that I do," she told Jeta, "But it makes things easier if I pray in the church some Sundays."

She took Jeta to church as well. It was hard to sit on a wooden bench and listen to the strange words of the pastor for so long, and sometimes Marge had to take her out and walk the mile back to the little house within the sweetbrier hedge. Other times Marge would speak to her of the stories that the pastor was telling, and Jeta learned about Adam and Eve, the first man and women; the great flood and the Ark; the travels of Father Abraham; and then the life and death of Jesus Christ. It helped pass the time during the cold winter, when even Jeta did not want to be under the open sky.

Marge also taught Jeta how to brew simples and how to cook, how to cut out a bodice and how to sew it, how to mend shoes and wash linens. As the year turned to spring, when the lambs followed their mothers and the apple trees shed their blossoms, Jeta was once again able to spend time outdoors. But now her eyes had learned to look for herbs, more than she had ever learned with old Malena. She followed Marge Small to homes and shops, carrying the basket of simples, helping to bandage wounds, and learning the signs and treatments of sickness.

"Pastor came this morning," said Marge one noontime, when Jeta came back from Cartagena farm with a dozen eggs in exchange for a stone bottle of spring tonic.

"What did he need?" asked Jeta, as she put the eggs into the still room.

"He wants to baptize 'ee as a Christian, lover."

Jeta was silent a moment. She knew that no one in her old life ever went to church, although they had all listened quietly enough when the local minister or the farmer blessed the harvest at whatever town or farm the band was working. "What do 'ee think on it, Marge?"

"It will make your life easier with the folk hereabouts, sure-lye. As it does mine. And it's for the best to plead God's will to favor your healing, any road."

So on the Sunday after Midsummer's Day, Jeta stood before Pastor Packham and the congregation, wearing a new bodice and kirtle of soft blue-grey and a white cap, and she gave the answers to the questions. Pastor laid his hands on her in blessing, and she was given the Christian name Gennet Anna Small.

All through the summer Gennet worked with Marge at collecting and preparing herbs, tending the garden around the cottage, and visiting those who needed the wise woman's help. She helped Marge set broken limbs and bind wounds from fights and farm accidents. She assisted with the births of four pups, three children, two calves, and a foal. And although she still sometimes thought of herself as _Jeta,_ she answered to _Gennet_ or _Genty_ as easily as any village girl answered to _Mary_ or _Alice_ or _Sukey_.

As the land readied for harvest, Genty found herself stopping at odd moments, trying to remember words of Rom and the faces of her kinfolk. Soon Lasho's band would come to help bring in the bounty of the Manhood. She would make Malena proud with how much herb wisdom she had learned, and likely she had grown taller than Vai: all the folk hereabouts remarked on how much she had grown since last winter.

One afternoon near the end of September, Marge looked up from her mending as Genty came in with a basket of late blackberries. Her face was tight and closed. "Sit 'ee down, lover. I have news for 'ee."

Genty felt a flutter in her middle. She set the basket down and seated herself on the second chair. "What … ?"

"The gypsies are due. P'rhaps they're here this very day. But I mus' tell 'ee that they won't be your folk this year."

"B-but they always…this is where we come!"

"Not always. Aye, we always have gypsies at harvest, but Lasho Mack and his folk on'y started coming to the Manhood these last six years. 'Ee were such a liddle poppet afore then that I doubt 'ee recall any different. As August went, I had a word with Mus' Farrington at the Big House. His horseman was traveling to Worthing to get a colt that was promised, and they most often have the gypsies a fortnight afore we do. So I asked that he speak with Mus' Mack about 'ee."

"Why?" Marge's nose was reddened. Genty wondered if she was starting a cold. 

"If they were coming to take 'ee away, I wanted to know afore time, so I might become used to the notion. I care for 'ee; do 'ee not know? But Mus' Mack said nay, that the old granny had died over the winter, and she was the one who wanted 'ee. They have other girls to dower and marry, he said, and 'ee could stop here. They'll go on up into the Weald for a bit instead an' send another band this way. Aye well, I'm sorry to pain 'ee, lover."

"No!" Genty was on her feet, the chair knocked to the floor. "That can't be true! They are coming, I know they are!"

"Nay, dearling, they're not."

Genty ran out of the house. The early autumn day was bright, heartlessly bright. Genty's eyes blurred with tears so that the blue of the sky was pale and milky. Her feet followed the path away from the house, a path that suddenly seemed less familiar, across the fields and scrub. She came to the lands of the Red House Farm by the back way, to the clearing where Lasho's camp had stood.

And there was a camp there. Women were setting tents, men were wiping down horses and cleaning harness. Little children were chasing each other among the older folk.

Not one face did she know.

A girl of her own age looked up from the fire she was tending and called out. Genty tried to be Jeta again and understand. But it was only as two women came toward her, their faces closed and unfriendly, that the meaning of the girl's words came back to her.

_Look, an English girl has come!_

Genty turned and fled. She ran back to the woods where she had berried that morning and threw herself down under the brambles. Lying there alone, thorny old canes pricking her, she had to face a truth: Jeta was gone. There was only Genty.

The sun was almost down behind the trees to the west, gathering gold and red to itself as it went, when she came up the grass path to the cottage. Gib did not greet her at the door. Instead, he was glaring at a basket set near the hearth. Marge was patting suet pastry over the filling of a fish pie. "Welcome back, lover," she said.

"Whatever's amiss with Gib?"

"We've another soul beneath the roof, an' he's not easy with it. Have a look in th' liddle basket, my lover."

Curled in a nest of rags was a small white kitten, marked about the head and back with grey and tawny patches. She yawned at Genty, who crouched down and laid her hand on the downy back. "What's her name, Marge?"

"That's for you to choose, lover. Gib's enough for me, y' see."

For a moment, Genty looked at the embers of the fire with hot, dry eyes. Was she a babe, to have a kitten take her mind off her loss? How could Marge think so?

The fire hissed and popped, and the kitten purred under Genty's hand. Marge came over, carefully carrying the pie, and opened the door of the oven set into the side of the hearth. Genty could smell the savory filling of fish she herself had bought in Somerley Green that morning, with coins she and Marge had earned with their hard work. She had gathered the kindling in the basket by the hearth, as well as fully half the herbs that hung from the ceiling. Together they had dyed the yarn for the stockings Mistress Payne had knitted for them, that they were wearing even now. Together they had sewn the tablecloth and renewed the straw mattresses, carried the milk crock from Cartagena Farm, hoed the garden and harvested the early turnips.

This was where Genty Small lived, and Genty Small was no bad thing to be.

"Her name is Biddy," Genty said.

* * *

_So long ago_ …Biddy had been mother to Tuppence, who'd given birth to Pipkin, mother of Evy, who'd had Grace, whose daughters had included Griselda.

And now Griselda mewed and butted at Genty's ankles, like a kitten again, wondering whether her mistress was mazed. "There now, lover," said Genty. "I'll fill your dish sharpish." She hurried into the house and soon had Griselda's saucer brimming with milk from the crock in the cold room. Then she set about her own supper: yesterday's bread and fresh sheep's-milk cheese, pease pottage, and an apple.

She'd scarcely taken a bite of the fruit when she heard a voice from outdoors, calling for Mess Small.

"Here I be," she answered, coming to the door. "Oh, 'tis Dick Ellis from Cartagena. What's amiss?"

"Naught, I hope, But Mess Selina says come quick as 'ee can so that 'ee aren't troubled. The babe is coming, she says."

"Aye, I won't keep 'ee but a moment." Genty went back into the house and lit the lantern she hadn't bothered with before. Damaris' baby, she thought, warmed through. The time is good, a fine nine months. A first child: she won't be hurrying, likely, but I'd best do so. She's a brave and a strong one, but it might be a long labor.

When she'd packed her basket, she raised an admonishing finger to Griselda. "Now, my dearling, keep all well an' gladsome for me. I'll be the night, sure-lye: babes don't come as easy as kittens." 

The moon was just up as she hurried after Dick: almost the harvest moon, speaking of the land's promises fulfilled. Another September, and all was well.


End file.
